Biannual triage + activity vacation

For lots of students, the week before finals is actually worse than finals week itself, because that's when all your big projects are due. In fact, this semester, I am in a pretty good position to have everything done by Friday, the first day of finals. Once that's over, I'll have a quick break and then slam back into the large amounts of personal work I need to get done this spring and summer. 

It will be way less stressful though, because it'll be my own deadlines. 

At this point in the semester, it's always pretty safe to do a major triage. Cal Newport talks about an "activity vacation" that starts at the beginning of the semester, which I don't quite follow. I just do it for a week at the end of the semester. This means I drop every activity that is not directly related to my classes, with one exception: I make sure to work out every day in some form, and I do at least try to write and practice art, but I do not care much if I miss it. Because I will have weeks without homework after that. 

So my work hours have been wonky, I vanished from the senior film (I will not do this next year, but I feel very strongly that I need this spring to review fundamentals and do some personal projects right now, as this has been a point of frustration for me for a while -- I just think I'd be better off getting a better handle on the basics of Houdini, and how to take an entire project from start to finish, than getting tossed into the deep end with a super tight deadline once again), I didn't go to track practice (been injured anyway), I am not going to my 318 writing group this week (though I will probably fit in my other one as we tend to meet later in the week), etc. I'm going to have double readings to do next week but oh well. 

The point is, when you've got a week that can make or break a lot of your classes, bowing out of your other activities for this brief time is the most intelligent thing to do. 

Right now, my only commitments are as follows:

• Computational Creativity. 
• University Band -- concert tonight. 

This feels SO nice. 

The optional add-ons:

• Work at least a few hours. 
• Do some form of exercise in the morning. 
• If I have time, I can draw and write a bit. Trying to hit my 350 words per day goal, but if I don't, it doesn't matter. School always comes first. 

And I always sleep at least 7-8 hours per night. 

It doesn't matter if I watch cartoons during breaks, or post online, so long as I'm getting those first 2 commitments done. But I also have zero obligation to do any of that. I just relax and unwind however I see fit. The important thing is to get through finals in one piece, with my GPA intact. I'm going to ditch out around 2:30 or 3 PM today and go home to do some homework, and get prepared for band, then drive back. Better than having to change into a suit in some random bathroom, gross. 

As an aside, BYU's graduate program is becoming a major pain with how seldomly certain classes are taught. There are many classes I've had to triage and switch around because I don't want to be stuck in Utah forever, and I can't just sit here waiting for them to be taught. Advanced Computer Security and Multi-Agent Systems are the big ones. If I can't take Robust Control, I'm really going to be irritated because it was supposed to be taught at least every other year. I bowed out in 2021 because of how advanced the material was but dang it I WILL be prepared by January. 

There are zero interesting CS classes taught at the grad level for next semester, so I'm going to IS instead. I'm gonna take Red Team Blue Team, since I can't take Advanced Computer Security, and I'm going to take Math 290, finally, which I should've taken a long time ago. The nice thing about the Red Team Blue Team class is that I can finally get involved with BYU cybersecurity which I've been wanting to do for a while anyway. I'm completely out of graphics classes to take, so I'll just hop on the senior film with ACTUAL GOOD SKILLS this time, and also start working on my final project for my master's. 

Real-Time Techniques looks kinda cool but it's 300-level, so it won't count, and I really feel like I need Math 290. Even so, I might look into that as well. I'm not taking 3 classes at once though, not with the film and my project as other commitments. It's too much. And yeah it's probably better to just focus on the film. I can figure out Unreal on my own time. I've already done some tutorials with it. 

It's going to be intense no matter what, but the only real way out is through. And for now, to finish computational creativity.